10 Years Later

10 years ago - that's 3,652 days. That's quite a long time, but yet it seems like just last week that I watched the twin towers disappear from the Manhattan skyline. I haven't turned on the TV today because I know that all that will be on are the images from that day.

I went to church today and the priest spoke of forgiveness and I thought about how I could never forgive those people who shattered our peace of mind and attacked our liberty. The choir sang "the Lord is kind and merciful" and I thought "where was his kindness and mercy when I watched 2,819 people die?" I got so angry and accused him of abandoning America. But then I prayed. I began my prayer by thanking God for allowing me to live in a country so great as ours. I thanked him for the privilege to be in that church, on my knees, praying to the God that I wanted to pray to, not the God that the government told me I had to pray to. I thanked him for our freedoms and our liberties and asked him to preserve them for us and our future generations, and then I asked him to bless the souls of those 2,819 people, and I asked him to comfort their families and friends.

This picture says more than just what you can see with your eyes. On that day our world came to a screeching halt. Look at the people, almost glued to the spot where they stood, staring wide-eyed in shock and horror as the twin towers smoldered in the sky. But 10 years later we've moved on with our lives. There is a taxi cab whizzing past the person holding that photo, no doubt with someone inside that is in a hurry to be somewhere. People have gone back to work and school, they're still flying on commercial airliners - but I guarantee you that anyone that was old enough to know that was going on that day has not forgotten where they were, let alone how they felt and I hope that memory lasts them a lifetime. We must never forget the innocent souls of all those who died, especially the first responders who risked and lost their lives so that others might have been spared.

I just ask that you say a simple prayer for the gifts we've been given in this country, and for the souls of the victims of September 11, 2001. From the day we declared our independence from England and announced that we were one nation under God, free from tyranny and oppression, we have been hated the world over. We are hated because we elect our leaders rather than having them forced on us, and because we are free to walk into a church of any religion or denomination and kneel down and pray. We are hated because we have something they all want so badly but don't know how to obtain; we have freedom. So I say let them continue to hate us, because these colors don't run and we're not going to compromise what we hold dear just to appease them. And that's what makes America the greatest country on Earth - especially on this day - 10 years later.